


The Business of Misery

by choicescarfsylveon



Series: Seasons 4, 5 & 6 Fix-It-Fics [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Goes AU During 6x01 "Loser Like Me", Hate to Love, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-08 16:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12868797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choicescarfsylveon/pseuds/choicescarfsylveon
Summary: “You need someone to replace-date Blaine with. Why not me?”“Are you kidding? Not only did you try toblindme once, but I never bought the whole ‘I’m all rainbows and sunshine because some guy I barely knew tried to hurt himself’ thing. I suspect you’re still just as tricky as you always were.”“Yeah, but I’m pretty.”





	1. It’s Obvious That You’re Dying

**Author's Note:**

> Season 6 was a trainwreck, we all know this. But, I swear to God, it had potential.
> 
> What if Kurt showed back up in Lima, found Blaine dating Karofsky, and decided to get revenge? What if Sebastian became a season regular? This is how I would've written Season 6 if I could've.
> 
> This fic operates under the canon fact that Sebastian is a year or so younger than Kurt, which I have literally always changed in my depictions of this ship. But this time, I think it will be fun (:
> 
> Borrowing two character's from USA's Mr. Robot to fill out the cast. No need to watch that show to understand them in their roles here. In addition, my inspiration comes from two songs by Paramore, [Fences](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybluEqQTpKk) and [Misery Business](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VPotzhpAGE)
> 
> Anyway, without further ado, have this silly romance I've been dreaming up for months:

_**KURT** _

 

Thank God when I come out of the bathroom at Scandals, Blaine and Karofsky are nowhere to be found. My tears are dry, but it hits me that I’m standing in the last place I ever could’ve pictured myself three months ago. The sticky floors, flashing lights, and cheesy 80s music make me realize how far away I am from New York. My home.

 

For a moment, I think maybe I should drink. I need _something_ to erase the ten minutes I spent watching David refer to Blaine as “Boo Boo.” Just as I approach the bar, however, I see that Dave and Blaine are still here after all. Out on the glowing, blue dance floor, Blaine is doing that thing where he stares longingly at me, giving me sad, bedroom eyes.

 

I can’t do this with him now, can’t burst into tears again. So I plan to make my exit, until I hear:

 

“Surprised about the two of them? Well, that makes two of us.”

 

I feel ice run down my spine at the sound of that voice behind me. Of course, on top of everything else tonight, at the bartop sits none other than Sebastian Smythe, hunched over and nursing a dark cocktail. It’s like the karma gods _knew_ I would be here and sent all my man-related nightmares to swamp me. Could this night get any worse?

 

“I bet you were thinking it’d be me,” Sebastian continues. “Trust me, when I saw his little ass cruise through here looking all lonely and heartbroken, I tried. Again. But something about dating Karofsky gives him _that_ much more leverage in what is clearly a barely concealed plot to make you hate yourself.”

 

It occurs to me that they’ve spoken about what happened, then, at the very least. I also gather from how much Sebastian’s talking to me—we’ve never spoken more than three words to each other that weren’t testy—that he _must_ be drunk. What is he doing back in Ohio, anyway?

 

“Thank you for your astute observations,” I say. “That I didn’t ask for.”

 

Sebastian smiles, taking a long swig from his drink that is clearly too strong for him, judging from the face he makes. “Between you and I,” he says, “Blaine Anderson is never gonna be happy. Like, with anyone, ever. Let him run off and be miserable with someone else while you still have a chance.”

 

Sebastian finishes the rest of his drink and dismisses himself somewhere off into the crowd. Yep, I still hate him. How dare Sebastian think he knows my fiancé— _ex_ fiancé—well enough anymore to brandish conjecture like that. But once he’s gone, I can’t help the stab of pain, the knowledge that he’s right, the word _miserable_ swimming inside my head. Blaine and I were fighting so much, in the end. There was never a moment of peace in our house that lasted, whenever we were alone together for more than a couple of hours. Blaine doesn’t mean it, I know he doesn’t mean it, but he just _worries_ so much about everything. So much so, it’s extremely hard to love him without catching that worry yourself.

 

God, he’s still watching me right now. I have to go.

 

I walk out of the dive bar in this city I swore I’d never crumble back towards. It was quite a humiliating first day back. I wonder if Rachel knew. I wonder if Blaine loves him already. What if they end up getting married?

 

What the hell am I doing here?


	2. This Is Your Night, So Smile!

_**SEBASTIAN** _

 

Only a year into my college career, I hit rock bottom. Some would say it was a long time coming. Sure, I’d turned over a new leaf on the surface – no more blackmail, no more assault - but inside, I was still me. I just learned how to control my tongue.

 

For a while.

 

It took everything in me to be a “pacifist” when Hunter got us disqualified from the Regionals that the _rest of us_ earned. See what happens when I’m too nice? Shit falls out of line. The Warblers hated me when I was captain, but we were _good._ The only reason we didn’t go on to Nationals junior year was because for some insane reason, the New Directions get home court advantage every single fucking time there’s a midwestern Regional. Unrestricted access to the stage, the lights, the hallways, and the sound system months before the show? Talk about a rigged game.

 

I gave up on that show choir bull for the rest of high school and focused instead on getting into Yale. I did, of course, early acceptance; the Smythe men have been Yale legacy for decades. In college, I vowed to draw the line between authoritative and evil slushie-throwing dictator. I joined a frat. Probably not the best move for someone like me, who is extremely motivated towards evil by competitive, hot, antagonistic men, but again, I was a legacy. The Omega Pi chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon owes it to my father for re-instating the organization, after they were suspended for making their pledges bathe in hot wax. He was the most successful Archon in the history of the frat. I was practically begged to join their ranks. Sort of.

 

But, like anyone raised an only child who never had to face real adversity because money, I didn’t take well to being hazed. After weeks of nights spent running laps and drinking gallons of milk until I puked, I was fed up. Once I was initiated, I plotted to get the Archon, vice and treasurer kicked out of school for what they did to me. And, it worked. Not only was I a hero with half of my freshman cohort, but I planned to run with their support for the newly open Archon seat, on an anarchist, overthrow ticket. The chapter was suspended, again, for what I did, but that didn’t mean internal operations couldn’t still be run. By me.

 

But then, well, my plan backfired. Not only did every upperclassman vote unanimously to kick me out of SAE, but many would spend the rest of the year trying to make my life a living hell; especially after the school was forced to conduct investigations on _every_ frat’s hazing practices, just because I blew the top off. All of a sudden, my credit score tanked; three bad mortgages and eight maxed out credit lines were opened in my name. They posted rumors on Yale social boards that I had AIDS, was a Syrian refugee, and liked feet. They had it out for my ass. I couldn’t go to any parties on frat row, and everywhere I walked, every guy in Greek letters stared me down. I was a social leper. Like Jesus carrying the goddamn cross.

 

When my dad found out what happened, he actually cut me off. “Do you realize what I’m gonna have to face when I go back for alumni functions? My son is the idiot who reversed my reinstatement and then tried to pull a coup because he ‘didn’t like’ the _two hundred_ year old traditions.” I thought it was a joke, but the next morning, I couldn’t access any of my accounts. I had to get a job. Working at the on campus Starbucks was fine for a day, but then some plebeian at the counter told me her coffee wasn’t cold enough. I remade the drink three times, and the bitch _still_ wasn’t good with it. So, I spit in it. Then I got fired. All the while, my grades were tanking.

 

Finding a forty year old sugar daddy on Seeking Arrangements helped for a while, but he demanded so much of my time for the $1500 a week I needed to maintain my lifestyle, I could hardly study. He was a closeted attorney with an attitude that wasn’t going to fly with me for long. We broke up when I told him that he dated younger men because he was a step away from pedophile. He didn’t take that lightly.

 

Alone again and twice cut off, at the end of April, I realized I had turned back into the monster I’d fought so hard to stave off last year. What had happened to the version of me who saw the light when he discovered the story of Dave Karofsky? That guy was nice. Boring, but nice.

 

I never should’ve killed him.

 

I needed to reevaluate my life, hard, so I did what any man would do: I called my mom. She and my father have been divorced since I was nine and she lives in South Africa with her millionaire banker husband. Because she still has witchlike pull with my father even halfway across the globe, she called on my behalf to curse him for abandoning her baby, me, financially. So, my dad offered to let me come home and stay in the house, with only a fraction of the funding I used to receive, as long as I worked like hell at an “unpaid internship” with the State’s Attorney’s office. Under him.

 

So now, here I am. Taking a year off. Or two. My dad won’t pay for any more Yale tuition until I prove I’m on the straight and narrow.

 

I try not to spend so much of my time outside of work at Scandals, but straight people are everywhere in this city, they infest my workplace with their mediocrity. I can only stand so much of them at a time. Now that I’m no longer on a mission to fuck every good looking guy I make eye contact with, being in Scandals is kind of nice. I talk to people. I make friends. I go home alone every night. Most nights.

 

It’s embarrassing having to explain my fall from Yale society grace, but who _doesn’t_ have a fall-from-grace story when you’re in a run-down drag bar in West Lima, Ohio? All the people I remember from high school are still here; guys like Karofsky, and Blaine.

 

And somehow, Kurt.

 

Blaine was clearly out of sorts when I saw him for the first time in years on Country Bear Night, of all nights. I was there because I live there and I’m always there, but he had been in town for months (I still stalk the beautiful dunce on Facebook sometimes, sue me) and hadn’t turned up in the place once until that day.

 

And who did I catch him making eyes with, on this special occasion, of all people? Dave Karofsky. I’ve got nothing against the guy; in fact, I’ve got everything like respect for the guy for going through what he went through. But don’t call me heinous for admitting what all of us know, that he’s not the best looking cow in the herd. And even if he was the sexiest, most hung, “burly” twenty two year old walking around this earth, that is _so_ not Blaine’s type. Elven twinks like Kurt are his type. So, what gave?

 

Making the grave mistake of talking to them, coupled up by the jukeboxsome weeks later, gave me my answer.

 

“We got to talking,” Blaine said, looking to Karofsky to nod and confirm all of his answers like a bobblehead, “mostly about Kurt, and realized we had _so_ much in common!”

 

“Gross.”

 

Last week, I only vaguely remember seeing Kurt by the bar while I was downing my fifth Irish car bomb. But now, clear as day, here he is again: standing out in those in clothes and that scarf in a place like this. I gotta be honest, I definitely saw Karofsky never leaving Lima coming, and Blaine’s over-acheiving, neurotic ass crawling back here with his tail between his legs for a break at some point, too. But Kurt? Damn him for being so high-pitched and annoying, but he’s probably the most determined guy to ever be born in the hellish sinkhole that is Lima. Facebook tells me he’s one of NYADA’s top performers, Carmen Tibideaux’s darling, and some kind of local hero. He even had a swank British boyfriend at one point. So, what gives?

 

I overhear Kurt on the phone with that Rachel chick, tonight in a bathroom stall, and get my answer.

 

“ _Kurt, what are you doing back at Scandals?”_ He’s talking on the phone to her on speaker when he walks in, and I decide to stay locked inside the stall I’m in, intrigued. _“I thought you said you hate it there!”_

 

“I do, but I need someone to replace-date Blaine with like, ASAP, and this is literally the only place within a fifty mile radius where I can meet someone fast enough to do that.”

 

He sounds drunk, which makes me want to come out of the stall and tease him. Something about our last encounter, which I don’t really remember, tells me that he was snarky with me. But I wait.

 

“ _Look, Kurt, I’m all for you moving on, but don’t you think it’s a little too soon for you to be dating someone who isn’t Blaine? I mean, you’re here to work, right? Maybe you should just focus on that. You’re going to have a lot on your plate, working full time, flying back to NYADA for midwinter critiques, acing all your big performance exams, making it on time for your meets with Carmen Tibideaux—”_

 

“Yes, Rachel, I know, I was stupid and I followed my heart out here instead of my brain. But now, my brain is going to get my heart out of this. It’s going to figure out a way to make this work.”

 

Fuck it, now’s as a good a time as ever. I push open the stall door and catch Kurt pacing in the middle of the washroom with his phone. When his eyes meet mine, he stops. Stares at me coldly.

 

“— _anyway, I’m e-mailing you the setlist I came up with last night for when we_ finally _get our first Directions—Kurt?”_

 

“I’ll call you back.”

 

It was always fun getting this reaction; Kurt wears his emotions all over his face, so you know you get to him. I move beside him in the tight space to run the sink. His eyes are shooting daggers into the side of my face.

 

“Eavesdrop, much?” he says.

 

I make eye contact with him through the mirror. “I was in the bathroom first.”

 

“You’re going to tell Blaine what I said,” he assumes.

 

“I really don’t give a shit about Blaine anymore.”

 

Kurt tempers at this. He looks a little bit surprised when I turn to look him in the eyes. I’m definitely sure he’s drunk, the way the skin under his shirt is all red and flushed. He stares at me for a while, not hateful, considering me the way he did that day when I apologized to him and Blaine.

 

“I thought you were going to Yale,” he says.

 

“I was. Now I’m here. So are you.”

 

“I’m only here for the semester. And, as you heard, I have a lot of work to do. Out there.”

 

He makes the mistake of lingering before taking his leave. His eyes scan me up and down. It’s less come-on than it is “my, how he’s grown,” but I’m not opposed to the idea of him looking at me either way.

 

I suddenly, clearly recall seeing him the other night; watching Blaine and Karofsky right beside me, his eyes dancing. If I were Kurt Hummel that night, and any night in this universe, I’d be pissed. Seeing the guy I’m supposed to marry with the guy who made me miserable? The last time I talked to Dave, I understood that he and Kurt were on good terms; but still, there’s no way in hell they’re buddy-buddy enough for Kurt to be cool with Dave _stealing his man._

 

I understand Kurt’s residual anger. I share in it. I feel it radiating off him as he stares at me right now. I’ve got no one in particular to be angry with, but there’s always someone somewhere who’ll fuck up soon enough. Having someone to hate someone else with is a pleasure.

 

“You need someone to replace-date Blaine with,” I say, as he still lingers. I smile. “Why not me?”

 

Kurt scoffs. “Are you kidding? Not only did you try to _blind_ me once, but I never bought the whole ‘I’m all rainbows and sunshine because some guy I barely knew tried to hurt himself’ thing. I suspect you’re still just as tricky as you always were.”

 

“Yeah, but I’m pretty.”

 

Kurt actually gives a genuine laugh at that, and I notice the sinew in his arms, the hard curves of his thighs in those pants. Fuck. Kurt was always good looking, wasn’t he? He’s certainly filled out in the last two years, hasn’t he?

 

“Think about it, Kurt,” I say now. “It would piss Blaine off just as much as I’m sure seeing him with Karofsky is tying your panties in a knot as we speak.”

 

“And what reason do _you_ have to piss Blaine off?”

 

“None, really.” I wink. “I just think it’d be fun.”

 

“Well, obviously, Sebastian, my answer is no. Thank you for your time.”

 

Minutes later, I’m back out at the bar, watching Kurt talk and flirt with a clearly older guy. Like, fifty older. Maybe that’s his type, or maybe he just wants to show the world how grown he is. I have to admit, as the man takes him out to the dance floor, saying something in his ear that makes him grin, I wonder what it takes to keep a guy like Kurt. Blaine couldn’t stand up to the plate, obviously. I wonder and it’s really not good for me to wonder.

 

Idle hands are the devil’s playthings. I’m idle.


	3. The Hurt Locker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this is making me remember how much I loved Karofsky's development. He deserved better tbh
> 
> Also, thank you to the wonderful [Lesbiannaisanna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesbiannaisanna) who is turning this story into a podfic as we speak! She will be posting it once the story is complete; can't wait for people to hear it x
> 
> EDIT 2/1: So sorry for the delay on updating this thing, writer's block has been a bitch and a half, but more is coming!

_**KURT** _

 

There was a point in time where Rachel Berry was my favorite person on the planet. Even though we fought like sisters when we lived in New York, she was daring and brave in a way I aspired to be, she got me through Finn's death like no one else ever could, and she absolutely _killed_ her Broadway debut until, well, she let her ego cause her to take a nasty fall. She wouldn’t really be _Rachel_ if that didn’t happen though, and really, who am I to talk about nasty falls? I’m single and I’m spending the fall after my twenty first hanging around my hometown’s local watering hole, instead of in the city drinking Cosmos and shopping on Fifth.

 

But lately, Rachel and I have not been close-knit. At the tail end of her stay in New York, I realized that I was increasingly becoming part of a relationship that only involved one party: me. Sure, she _came_ to my one-night performance of Peter Pan, but she was on her phone the whole way through it, and come to find out? She was _tweeting_ Perez Hilton. We used to hate Perez Hilton! And Twitter! What had happened to her?

 

I love her to this day, but any ounce of fame causes that girl’s head to become so big, it develops its own orbit. Though I’ll admit, Rachel definitely has sobered since her monumental breakdown post _That’s So Rachel_. Still, working with her as the “co-director” of the nonexistent New Directions is a more than a challenge. Two weeks into the resurrection of the troupe? We _still_ have no members.

 

I can’t get her to stop feeling like she’s running this big-time charity case that’s actually not doing any work for anyone. And I know, our Glee club was only five members strong back in the day for months, but at least Mr. Schue was also a teacher. All Rachel and I do at McKinley is sit in an empty room and argue about hypotheticals. Even then, it’s mostly her talking at me and me silently listening. I feel bad that she’s lost so much, but I can’t sit around and let her take it all out on me. Again. I’ll be doing a bang-up job at pulling the wool over NYADA’s eyes trying to convince them that _this_ is work experience.

 

Plus, Blaine’s the new coach of the Warblers, and he and Rachel are so buddy-buddy lately, I actually think she prefers his company to mine twice over. They’re constantly having “joint choir consultations” (we don’t even _have_ a choir, Rachel, I keep telling her), and after work, Rachel’s always meeting up with Blaine for coffee. And Blaine has been looking _so_ good lately. But he and I can’t even look at each other, not when he comes wandering through our halls or when I try and fail to hang out with them at the Lima Bean. Seeing him and Rachel gab on like they’re best friends just hurts me in this way that I can’t place.

 

I know I should probably want my workplace to be entwined with Blaine’s if I’m really trying to get him back; use the oversaturation strategy, make him feel like he _can’t_ get away from me or our destiny. But I can’t. I couldn’t even if he didn’t seem more at ease and more composed than I’ve seen him in years around Karofsky.

 

The worst part about it is that there’s _nothing_ wrong David as a person, or, I'm assuming, as a boyfriend. What I remember most about him, the him he became after, was that he has a good, simple heart. He doesn’t want much out of his life, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way; all he wants is to settle down with a husband, become a sports agent, have 2.5 kids, and quietly retire. Meanwhile, in New York, Blaine and I have been chasing skyscraping, celebrity-style dreams of stardom at NYADA. It’s why Blaine killed himself going through the stress of being June Dollaway’s project. It’s why I let my NYADA schedule kick my ass so much, I get lost in the work and neglect everything else.

 

I’m starting to think Blaine was dying inside living like that, trying to make it seem like he wanted that kind of life for me. He was always happiest alone in a room with an instrument, singing softly to himself to or me, no other audience. Maybe this is what Dave is to him: slow, quiet, suburban pacing with no added pressure, no fanfare.

 

Maybe I’ve been living in New York so long, I’ve lost sight of the fact that that’s what I used to want with Blaine.

 

Regardless, the reminder of my loss with him and how things all turned out is still just too much for me, right now. So, I’ve found another job. I've changed my work study assignment from McKinley to an educational non-profit called _Hearts For The Arts,_ of which the kind, soft-spoken, and stunning Joanna Wellick is the founder. The twenty nine year old from Denmark immediately makes me feel welcome on her staff, where we raise funds for grade schools all around the Midwest with arts programs that are, like McKinley’s, being shut out by the government’s new push for STEM. The one hour commute to Dayton every morning is far from a blast, but as long as its far away from McKinley and Dalton, I’m here for it.

 

Every day, I still feel this strange, aching pull to stay in Ohio, on the chance that things with my first love really will get better. But, for the next couple weeks, I’m focusing on me. This workplace makes that easy.

 

Except:

 

Today, three weeks into my internship, I’m told by Joanna’s assistant that the organization is currently facing a lawsuit from the state of Ohio. For _tax evasion_ _._ They're being purported to not actually be a non-profit, to be woefully underclaiming donations and funding, and Joanna herself could face charges of money laundering and _embezzlement._

 

“Joanna?” I repeat this morning, as I stop at the assistant’s desk downstairs for my daily morning gossip. “Embezzlement? That woman doesn’t seem like she could steal petals off a flower. She helps little kids!”

 

“Of course, it’s obviously not true,” Joanna’s assistant says, in her thick, Swedish accent. “The State’s Attorneys office is just really cracking down on projects that help the arts. Trying to make it seem like our work has no use.”

 

I hand her the Starbucks order I’ve picked up for her on the way, and she thanks me, but gestures for me to come closer:

 

“See those two on the couch over there? That’s the Assistant State’s Attorney and _her_ assistant intern who are here to deliver the subpoena. Right now.”

 

There in the lobby, next to the sharply-dressed blonde woman going over a packet, sits her clearly under-eager intern:

 

Sebastian Smythe.

 

“ _No,_ ” I declare, and the assistant looks at me quizzically. “I mean, no, they can’t do this, it’s not fair.”

 

“Wish I could be in the meeting." She pouts. “Joanna loves you, maybe you can ask her to be in it.”

 

The last thing I want is to sit in a room with Sebastian, who is apparently here to help _come for my job._ That’s right, I remember, his father is _the_ Attorney General of Ohio. That explains what Sebastian’s doing back here, sitting on that couch messing with the collar of his loose-fitting suit, looking bored as hell at whatever his boss is saying.

 

I quickly leave the lobby before he notices I’m staring, carrying the rest of my tray of coffees up the rickety elevator. Seeing him here wouldn’t be as frustrating if it wasn’t like I was seeing him everywhere lately. Two nights ago, Sebastian accosted me in a bathroom stall at Scandals with an insane proposition that he and I start dating. _“Think about it, Kurt. It would piss Blaine off just as much as I’m sure seeing him with Karofsky is tying your panties in a knot as we speak.”_

 

He’s right, the brown-noser, that me coming back to find Blaine and Karofsky in bed would be nearly just as shocking and implausible as Blaine finding the two of _us_ anywhere near each other. But what reason do I have to want to shock or hurt Blaine? Any more than I already have? I’m the one who broke his heart. I’m the one who turned cold and put off the wedding. I’m the one who pushed him away, so can I really blame him for moving on? Okay, I can a little bit; it could’ve been anyone else, Blaine, really, anyone else.

 

Someone who I _don’t_ have emotional history with.

 

Anyway, Sebastian is insane if he thinks that just because a couple of years have gone by, I trust him. He has a lot of work to do if, for some reason now, he’s inappropriately motivated to get into my good graces.

 

When I finally get upstairs to the office, handing coffees out to my cheerful, smiling coworkers, I get the sense that either none of them know about the lawsuit, or they’re all just that confident the state has nothing on us.

 

“Kurt,” Joanna says to me, enthused, delicate hand on my wrist in thanks before she takes her coffee from me. “There’s a meeting I want you to be a part of in a minute. When you work in non-profit, especially in fine arts non-profit, there will always be people accusing you of trying to get handouts. That’s why I think it’s best you learn how to defend yourself as early on your career as you can. Today will show you that.”

 

Apparently, I have no chance of getting out of this. I can’t say no to her with her calm, motherly graces and intriguing accent; she reminds me of a younger, foreign Isabelle Wright, who I miss dearly, and people from Europe just _sound_ more intelligent than us, even if they actually aren’t. That’s why I agree, trying to keep my begrudgement under wraps, as she leads me into the room where the service will take place.

 

I sit on one side of the table with Joanna, the director of finance, and two lawyers representing _Hearts For The Arts._ The Assistant State’s Attorney enters the room and introduces herself as Angela Moss, as Sebastian follows behind her. I wait for him to notice that it’s me, and when he does, he perks up. Looks pleasantly surprised.

 

 _I’m sure you’re going to get a kick out of this,_ I think as he sits, grinning at me while his boss explains the details of the case. It’s like he knew I was working here or something. Who told him? Blaine? Blaine must’ve heard it through the grapevine from Rachel.

 

Jesus, Kurt. Relax. Maybe it really is just a coincidence. Maybe he wasn’t trying to snoop and get dirt listening in on your conversation in the bathroom Saturday night. He does seem, well. Older. He _is_ older, that’s a fact, but I just mean, there’s something about the look on his face that, while still mischievous, has tempered from the way I always remember it.

 

When I find out how much _Hearts For The Arts_ supposedly owes the state, eighty _thousand_ dollars in back taxes, and hear the excess of documentation Angela wants us to produce, which is just going to mean more hours for me, I don’t miss the way Sebastian smirks right at me. Okay, so maybe he hasn’t matured that much. Joanna, despite the nervous looks the director of finance is shooting her, is not fazed at all. She keeps a cool, innocent smile on her face, perfectly accommodating but strategically quiet.

 

Afterwards, I strategically don’t make eye contact with Sebastian as I leave the room and head back to my desk. Seeing him at the gay bar so many times has been enough, and I’m really starting to think I should stop going back there. Even though I did meet a charming older man named Walter there last time, and part of me _does_ want Blaine to see me meeting him there, that kind of level of petty is below me. I don’t have to prove to Blaine that I’ve moved on. I’m happy alone.  _Will_ be happy alone.

 

Just as I’m about to turn on my laptop to start my marketing work for the day, I sense a tall, lanky figure standing over my desk.

 

“Hey, Kurt.” Sebastian is smiling way too much at me for my comfort. “Any chance you could show me where the men’s room is?”

 

“Down the hall to your right.”

 

I watch him suspiciously as he goes. Maybe he’s going in there to plant a bug or something. But after a few minutes,I forget to look up and check to see that he’s left, especially after getting an eager e-mail from Joanna’s assistant: _Kurt!_ _Just saw the A_ _SA_ _leave_ _!_ _Come back downstairs and tell me what happened!!! xo_

 

I leave my desk and step inside the elevator, only to hear someone running towards it just as it’s about to shut. “Hold the door—“ Of course, it’s Sebastian. He manages to make it inside without my help, and I push the ground level button for us several times. Ignoring him. And his cologne. Is that Gucci? It is, that’s Gucci. God, that smells sexy. He does _not_ deserve to smell that way.

 

As the elevator makes its slow, jagged decline, Sebastian shoots his shot.

 

“You look nice today.”

 

I must have a shocked look on my face, because he follows up with “What?” as I’m about to thank him hesitantly. I don’t say he looks nice too, because while what he’s wearing is the makings of a fine business suit, it’s at least two sizes too big for him. I’d offer to tailor the jacket and pants myself, if I cared about his career.

 

“Did you plan this?” I say. “Being the bearer of bad news that my wonderful, shiny, _dream_ work study position is about to be threatened?”

 

“Trust me, I had no idea you worked here. I chose to shadow Angela because she’s the best of the best. Now that I’ve graduated from copy work and coffee runs for my father, I _need_ to be on cases run by the best.”

 

“It’s awful,” I tell him, and he raises a brow. “Joanna and her staff are honest, hardworking people who are just trying to inspire little kids. The state government is all up in Sue Sylvester’s tirade right now to burn the arts down until there’s nothing left but ashes. You _would_ be right in with their schemes. What about all that the Warblers did for you, huh? Didn’t you benefit from that? Or is winning more important to you than personal enrichment?”

 

Sebastian laughs. “Alright, A, the only thing the Warblers taught me is that when the blind lead the blind, destruction happens for all involved, and no amount of singing about it will save you. B, I don’t care about the government. I’m a libertarian. I think taxes are a scam. C, the only reason I’m in this elevator right now is because this job is my dad’s idea of punishment. But, on the plus side? You are in the elevator.”

 

Just then, said shitty, old elevator is called upon by the universe and my personal karma gods to jolt to a stop. “Oh my god, are you kidding?” I click the ground button over and over to no avail. We're stuck.

 

“You’re like cursed or something!” I accuse Sebastian.

 

Sebastian just shrugs. “You’re probably right.”

 

I take out my cellphone. No service. The alarm button makes no indication that I’ve sounded any alarm. Someone will realize we’re suspended in midair eventually, but until then? I can already feel the heat in here rising.

 

“Great.” I undo my tie, unbutton the topmost button of my shirt, and fiercely ignore the way Sebastian watches me do it, because it makes me remember him the night I met up with Blaine, drunk, telling me things that have burned in my memory since:

 

“ _Something about dating Karofsky gives him that much more leverage in what is clearly a barely concealed plot to make you hate yourself.” “Between you and I, Blaine is never gonna be happy. Let him run off and be miserable with someone else.”_

 

Sebastian sits down, admitting defeat while I try to make phone calls to Joanna. Ten minutes later, I’m still trying.

 

“You should really stop pacing,” he says. “It’s just gonna make you feel like it’s hot in here.”

 

“It _is_ hot in here.”

 

“This isn’t so bad. Actually, this is kind of working in my favor. Now I have an excuse to be late to my dad’s office. And, I know you wanna talk to me.”

 

“About?”

 

“About what I know about Blaine and Karofsky.”

 

My heart starts beating hard and fast. He _was_  around to witness their inception, and why would Sebastian say, how would he _know_ anything about Blaine trying to “make me hate myself”?

 

As much I want to ignore Sebastian’s clout, and the way he looks sitting on the floor with his long legs crossed, perfectly normal and harmless, I sit on the floor too, disarming myself. Might as well not act like this whole mess with Blaine isn’t stunning me. Sebastian’s the only person I have left who could have any intel.

 

God, my well is dry.

 

“Why did you say Blaine is _plotting_ to make me hate myself?”

 

“Because. It’s what I would be doing if I were him. And, I mean, you talked to them. I was eavesdropping, by the way, throughout that entire painfully awkward conversation. He straight up said he _knew_ that it was going to be weird for you. Why would you think that that’s just a coincidence?”

 

“But you didn’t hear him say it directly.”

 

“Didn’t have to. Every time I see them together, it’s obvious that Blaine is looking around at everyone, almost like he's  _counting_ how many people are watching them. People talk about you around here, you know. You’re a big deal for being gay in New York or whatever. And people definitely talk about Dave. There’s even talk that you and him were together at McKinley.”

 

That horrible kiss, Dave gripping my face, suddenly flashes back into my head. I haven’t thought about that in years. “We weren’t.”

 

“Blaine _wants_ to be between two of the most high-profile guys that he knows in this town. He wants it to look like he snagged the guy that people think is your ex. Think about it. Dave and Blaine both get blindsided by selfish Kurt and fall in love, run away together as if Kurt never hurt them. What a story of redemption, right? If I’d just lost my fiancé and I saw the chance for a sympathy card, I’d be milking the fuck out of it too.”

 

I’m shocked not just that Sebastian has clearly thought through all of this, but again, that he’s even decided to relay it. Something tells me, my gut tells me, that Blaine said something to him about me, something bad enough for Sebastian to think he has to be my _ally_ in this.

 

“Since when are you the expert on all of Lima’s gay men?” I ask, humored.

 

Sebastian chuckles. “Since I’ve been stuck here, bored, for the last year.”

 

There’s another thing he said that gets to me: that people understand my situation with David as me _blindsiding_ him. I know he wasn’t the perpetrator of that rumor, he forgives me for not answering his calls, we came to an understanding, a peace about that years ago. But what other people think? People I shouldn’t even _be_ around anymore, my god, I left this all behind me. Why do I care so much now?

 

Because Blaine’s home. And he cares.

 

And if it’s true? That Blaine really doesn’t want a future with Karofsky, that he’s just doing this all as some kind of ploy? A part of me doesn’t want to believe it, but still a part of me remembers the way he broke that night we ended it:

 

“ _I will_ never _forgive you for this.”_

 

The way he blocked me on every available channel, how hesitant Rachel was to _let me_ see him again. We’re able to be cordial now, he’s not as angry as he was, but if there’s one thing I know about Blaine? Only _he_ knows what he’s really feeling.

 

He may really want me to hate myself for this. And I came back here thinking he would jump into my arms.

 

“Which brings me to my next point,” Sebastian says, pulling me out of my thoughts. He’s undoing his tie, unbuttoning his dress shirt all the way, _not wearing an undershirt_. “Which is that your next move, if you’re smart, is not to let Blaine make you look desperate.”

 

“Desperate?” Alright, he’s gotten way too comfortable with me. He actually smiles at the sharp rise of my tone. Fucker. “I am _not_ desperate.”

 

“Not saying you are. Only that you’re starting to look it. I mean, really, why else would you abandon New York for this hell hole? Everyone knows you came back here for him, and you’re empty handed. That makes you look stupid, and I know you’re not stupid. Which is why, on top of your fancy job, you need a new man toy. Someone who’s well in your lane. Someone smart. Someone who makes it seem like you didn’t just come back to get rejected.”

 

“Oh, and what, that’s you?”

 

Sebastian winks. “Could be.”

 

He’s cute; it’s the first thought that pops into my head and it’s totally derisive. He’s cute for thinking that _his_ ploy is going to work. But then, it starts to roll along into something else:

 

Sebastian Smythe, for all objective purposes, _is_ good looking; I hated him and his tan, athletic body for a good reason. I mean, people stare at the guy whenever he walks in a room. I tried to ignore the way Blaine did it, all curiosity and amazement, even after Sebastian proved himself a menace who took out his eye. I blamed it on a residual jerk reaction to someone like Sebastian even lurking around Ohio. He and his sharp looks are clearly not from here. And it shows.

 

“The heat is making you delusional,” I say. It sure is making me delusional, too.

 

“It’s politics,” Sebastian says. “Not delusion. I’m the perfect move for you. Think about it a little more.”

 

I’m starting to sweat. I really hope the tech is on their way right now, or else... “There’s no way in hell I’m dating someone who supports defunding the arts. Who’s trying to take apart an organization that’s done nothing wrong _._ ”

 

Sebastian doesn’t seem fazed. “You don’t know that they’ve done nothing wrong. For all you know, you’re on a sinking ship and I’m saving you.”

 

“Shut the hell up.”

 

“Oh, touchy. It’s been a while since you’ve gotten laid, hasn’t it? I could help with that.”

 

“What part of ‘I could never date you’ aren’t you hearing?”

 

“The part where you’re resisting me for reasons that don’t matter.”

 

There’s a knock on the roof of the elevator, and for once, the universe is on my side. “You guys alright?” the tech yells. “I’m gettin’ you out.”

 

I stand abruptly, re-tying my tie and wishing my face wasn’t burning. Sebastian’s right, not since the day Blaine left the loft in New York have I gotten sex. Even then, it was hateful, tearful break-up sex.

 

Sebastian may be a young, and alright, hot, okay? I’m admitting it; he may be a young, hot, snarky asshole who somehow _wants me_ to accost him, but he’s _Sebastian,_  he's annoying, screwing him for any reason would be a mistake. A big, big mistake. Get it together, Kurt.

 

The technician is able to lower us to the next available floor, prop the doors open so I can finally be free. I practically run out into the vacant hall, but Sebastian moves slow, taking his time.

 

Before I disappear into the stairwell, he catches my eye, his shirt buttons still open. He smiles and waves.

 

“See you around, lovely.”


	4. I Never Meant To Brag, But I Got Him Where I Want Him Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guys I'm the worst and this took forever (I had to work out what direction I wanna go plotwise exactly) but I'm back and here this is. Lesbiannaisanna, can't wait to hear your version xo

_**SEBASTIAN** _

 

Before I was promoted from coffee courier to Assistant Assistant State’s Attorney, with absolutely no pay raise, I was a step below the unpaid college intern who types case files eight hours a day, and a step above the lady who waxes the floors. Not a slight on Matilda, by the way. We're tight. My point is, my talents are being wasted at this job.

 

I like my new boss, though, Angela Moss, as much as I can “like” any state government drone. I hate that my on-the-job apathy, which I employ purely to get back at my dad, might keep her from doing her job. So, this Friday, when I accompany her for my first subpoena service, I actually try. At the very least, I find personal fulfillment watching the hilarious lengths that already-rich people go to to launder more money. This Joanna Wellick character, who just so luckily happens to also be Kurt’s work study boss, is probably just another sucker.

 

This Friday, after the service to Hearts For the Arts and a certain mishap in an elevator, I get back to Angela’s tiny corner office and sit with her to go over the case files one last time. She looks as young as I do, but I know from snooping through her file when I was on HR duties last year that she’s twenty eight. I also know she’s a lesbian. No woman who wears pant suits like that and intimidates grown lawyers with a smile and a perfectly even voice like she knows more than you do and knows it is heterosexual. My gaydar is one hundred percent accurate, male or female.

 

“So, over the weekend, I’ll need you to keep up with the case,” Angela says, and I’m half listening to her and half watching the clock, a minute away from 4:00. “This week we’ll be in contact with the IRS, getting the documents we requested from Joanna, and going through years’ worth of records that the state has on file for her. It will help me, and you, to familiarize yourself and research as much as you can beforehand.”

 

She smiles, then. “I hate to say it, Sebastian, but I get a sense that you’re that guy that likes to party all over the weekend.”

 

I smile back. “What makes you think that?”

 

The blonde’s large eyes find the clock.

 

“I know your dad.”

 

At 4:01, I’m moving as fast as I can out of the office, though not without the unpaid intern flagging me down at the door.

 

“Hey, man,” he says. “Sorry.”

 

He hands me a note, written on official stationary:

 

_Don’t wait up. I’ll be late. Stop by Kroger before six and be out of the house by eight. Reason: Hannah._

_NY strips, at least 12 oz. Shrimp, peeled, deveined, 3 lbs. Asparagus. Milk. Depends. No, those aren’t for me._

_Don’t use my credit card. Or else._

_Stephen Smythe, J.D._

_State’s Attorneys Office_

 

“Great. Thanks, Dad.”

 

So there I am at Kroger, picking up whatever Dad’s latest young gold digger needs to make dinner, and then some, and who do I see but one Dave Karofsky. He’s wearing a red baseball cap, pawing through produce while holding what is obviously Blaine’s man purse. I try to slip by without him catching me, because I’m not in the mood to be chatty, and the guy’s got a new lease on life, he’s nothing _but_ fucking chatty, when he looks up at me.

 

“Hey!” Dave grins, coming to shake my hand. “How’s your day going?”

 

“Can’t complain.” I take the handshake, social obligation. “I’m not trapped at work anymore, so there’s that.”

 

Blaine comes now, too, plastic basket full of fruit, shirt and bowtie so neon bright, he outdoes the real fruit.

 

“Oh, hey, Sebastian.” He smiles, sparkling golden eyes and all, but he’s obviously guarded. The way his eyes dart between us for a second, I wager he thinks I was just about to hit on his boyfriend. As if. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Even adulterous harlots need to eat.”

 

“We were thinking,” Dave says then, pulling Blaine absently into his side, as Blaine looks up at him, “we’re having a little housewarming party tomorrow night, at our new place in Ada. You should totally stop by. We’d love to have you.”

 

Moving in together already? Their break up is going to be so tragic.

 

“Congratulations,” I say, grinning. “I’ll be there.”

 

An hour later, Dave’s sending me a Facebook invite, which includes a slideshow of pictures of their apartment. It’s literally the gayest thing I’ve ever seen. Rainbows on every surface, pillows, rugs, curtains, doorknobs. I scroll through the invite list to find mostly McKinley alumni on board. I can’t imagine the secondhand embarrassment I’ll go through being there. I’m not actually going.

 

What I’m not expecting is to see, however, is Kurt’s profile on the list. He’s still undecided. His little profile picture is blurred, but I can tell it’s some kind of professional shot. Whatever lighting used makes his jawline look killer.

 

He’s also online.

 

We aren’t Facebook friends. I won’t ask first. If you asked, I’m sure he’d say he’d rather die than ask me. But this website tends to let you message people outside your circle. Take risks.

 

So, given today, given that elevator—Kurt was so good, the perfect game, and wearing the hell out of his suspenders—I message him with a link to the invite.

 

 **SEBASTIAN:** _Going to this?_

 **KURT:** _I can think of a few places I’d rather be._

 **SEBASTIAN:** _Everyone you know is going.I’ll be there._

 **KURT:** _Great! Now I want to go even less._

 **SEBASTIAN:** _Imagine this. You walk into their hideous den, I assume you’ve seen the photos, looking like ten million bucks and then some, and I show up looking, well, the way I do. We take that party arm-in-arm, happiest couple in the building, making both of them regret their cavernous union. Sounds like a date, does it not?_

 

He takes a while to answer, but I know I haven’t lost him. I know, even just from knowing him from a formerly hateful distance, and hearing what I do about him almost all the time, that Kurt likes a challenge just as much as I do. He wouldn’t have left for New York, breakneck, if he didn’t.

 

He wouldn’t have dumped his fiance, would he have? It was Kurt, who started this, after all. Kurt, who wanted something to change.

 

 **KURT:** _Hopefully, on this hypothetical date, you’ll wear more clothes than you did in the elevator._

 

Score.

 

He’s thinking about it too, whether it’s in disgust, which I’m sure is what he’ll lead with, or whether it’s because his body was showing me signs. He was hot, angry, at my coincidentally showing up at his job; he stayed mostly composed throughout the meeting, but I could see it, his brain probably calculating how I managed to track him down. What Kurt doesn’t know is that I barely orchestrate these things, anymore. Luck finds _me._

 

When I unbuttoned my shirt in the elevator, which I did because it genuinely was fucking hot in there, I definitely saw Kurt’s eyes wander. The way he was slightly sweating, the way his cologne smelled, his fingers tugging at his shirt collar, revealing skin.

 

The way his face flushed, betraying him, whenever I said something that touched him.

 

 **SEBASTIAN:** _See anything you like?_

  **KURT:** _What?_

  **SEBASTIAN:** _In the elevator._

  **KURT:** _I enjoyed seeing your back when you walked out_.

  **SEBASTIAN:** _Noted. I’ll wear tight pants to the party (;_

  **KURT:** _Goodbye._

 

Tonight, with nowhere really else to go, I find myself back at Scandals. It’s 80s Night in all its trashy glory, pink, green and orange neon lights bathing sweaty men on the dance floor. I find it a staple of my newfound maturity, take that, Dad, that I’m not in the bar to pick anyone up tonight. I sit at the counter, smiling at the guys I know, but keeping to myself, just waiting for time to pass.

 

Occasionally I talk up the bartender about baseball, which I hate, and trade drink recipes, which I love. Three whiskey sours in, the crowd is getting loud, and it’s almost eleven. It’s probably safe to get back to Dad’s without hearing or smelling anything traumatizing.

 

As I wait to close my tab, Facebook calls on me to check ‘yes or no’ for Dave’s party. On the list, Kurt’s still undecided.

 

But I’m not.

 

As I’m making my way out, I notice a bright, platinum blonde head weaving through the crowd, holding the hand of who must be her girlfriend. When I’m close enough to see her face, I find that she’s none other than Angela Moss.

 

“Oh, hey,” she says. She winks as she and her girlfriend pass by.

 

“Oh, hey.”

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday morning, I come downstairs to find my dad burning eggs in a frying pan, drinking water and scotch, working-from-home on his tablet. I grab myself a glass and the handle of scotch, but without even looking away from his tablet, Dad reaches across the counter to take the bottle.

 

“Your alcohol privileges are restored once you survive three months as an ASA.”

 

“Please,” I say. Broken record. “I could do more than three. I could do six. I could do _your_ job.”

 

He laughs without a shred of humor. “Wanna make that bet?”

 

“Nope. Just want my liquor cabinet key back.”

 

“People in hell want ice water.”

 

Despite the fact that I supposedly humiliated him to his hundreds of alumni frat brothers, and despite his insistence that I’m a lazy mouthbreather who won’t make it without him, my dad and I have a rapport. Sometimes. Our senses of humor, which most people find horrific, are sort of cosmically fated for each other. He’s tough, sarcastic and a bitch, and I can dish it right back.

 

Our antagonism can be fun, when it’s not out of hand, and if he wasn’t my dad, I’d think he was impressive, probably kill to be friends with him.

 

Unfortunately, though, he is my dad. A hypocrite of a disciplinarian. Strict on me and everyone but himself. Also a dick.

 

“Angela gave me a performance review for your first week on her cases,” he says. “She said you lacked focus, but your natural sharp memory will serve you well in the position. _If_ you apply yourself. Which you won’t.”

 

I glare at him and roll my eyes, even though he’s not looking. I know he can feel it.

 

“Well, _I_ think it’s going well,” I say. “She’s gonna have me stick to this Hearts For The Arts case, one of the non-profits, tax evasion. It won’t take me long to get up to speed. Plus, a friend of mine works for the other side, so I have an advantage.”

 

“You don’t have any friends.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Who’s this guy, one of the skinny paper boys you leave high and dry around here?”

 

“No. I did try to sleep with his boyfriend once, though.” I’m kind of trying to sleep with _him_ now.

 

“Look,” my dad says, “I’ll say it a million times, I’m glad you’re with men. Trust me, you don’t want to get a woman you don’t know pregnant. Your mom’s great and all, ‘sides that fucking cancerous temper—“

 

“Dad.”

 

“But what I’m _not_ happy about, is you thinking you can take all time in the world. Waste every person and opportunity you meet. It’s arrogant. And the single life don’t suit you, kid. Your finances, your focus, and your maturity will all spike when you settle down.”

 

“Like you’ve settled down.”

 

“When you’ve made your first million, you can talk to me about what I do with my life.”

 

The man’s decided that the breakfast monstrosity is finished. He pours the dark, crumbling pile of what used to be eggs on a plate, but I’ve decided I don’t want it. Not from him. I make a show of getting a bowl of cereal, attempting to look despondent, before going back upstairs, but he has nothing more to say. Speed reading though that tablet like a robot, pushing eggs around with a fork like he’s not going to eat what he killed. But he will.

 

The pressure, living in my father’s house, without my mother or any other kind of buffer from his judgement, has always been a lot. It’s partly why I was such an ax wound in high school, though that's not an excuse. My father has a political following, a legacy; he wants me to be the next him. But I don’t want his life, and he knows it; and I don’t want to go back on his money. I want to earn it myself. If only that wasn't so hard. If I could just have the balls to quit the job at the State’s Attorney’s office, maybe even leave his house, get into finance in the private sector, the way I had a pipe dream of doing before college. If I could just prove him wrong, for once in my life. But the truth is, I was wasting my time at Yale not knowing what to do, and I’m still wasting my time not knowing.

 

He could kick me out on the streets, that’s what I say, but I know he won’t. This is on me. He _likes_ me being weak, needing him. If I want to change my life, _I_ have to change.

 

Dave and Blaine’s housewarming disaster starts at seven. I get there at eight thirty, not wanting it to seem like I was eager to come or anything. The gay-fabulous apartment is even more alarming in person, though the rainbow is somewhat tempered by the two dozen people in it. I get myself a drink, vodka seltzer, in the kitchen, where Dave and Blaine are talking to a group of guys I recognize from Scandals.

 

“Glad you could be here.” Dave’s taken a moment to step from his conversation to greet me at the drink table, where I’ll probably stay for the next five minutes.

 

“No problem.” I bump the rim of my plastic cup to his.

 

I drink the whole thing one go.

 

Just when I’m debating on skipping my polite five minute timer, walking out before anyone from McKinley, like Santana, thinks they can openly sass me for being here, the doors open in the living room, and I hear voices sing:

 

“Rachel!”

 

I peek my head through the doorway, and next to Rachel is Kurt.

 

He doesn’t see me. I watch as he and Rachel hug mutual friends, some of whom I recognize. He’s wearing this strappy tight coat that almost looks like a straitjacket, but on him, inexplicably, it’s hot.

 

I stay in the kitchen. Dave and Blaine have taken some of their guests down the hall to give them a tour of what I’m sure is only a small bedroom and bath. The rest of the guys who didn’t leave with them then say something to me, and I nod, half-listen, keep watching Kurt. He looks painfully bored. He rolls his eyes at something Rachel says, then looks around, anxious. Probably looking for them.

 

Eventually, he wanders into the kitchen alone, where I am. His eyes are first drawn to the decoration of the room, and then he stares longingly at the photos of Dave and Blaine on the fridge.

 

I make my way to him as he walks to the liquor table, making a drink in the exact combination as mine. When he sees me, he rolls his eyes, again.

 

“You’re actually here,” he deadpans. "You're incredible."

 

“I know,” I say. "Told you." I flash him my biggest smile. “I’m wearing the pants you like.”

 

His eyes flicker down to them, brief. I don’t miss the way his lips twitch, like he could smile.

 

“There’s nothing you do that _I_ like.”

 

When Dave and Blaine re-enter the room, Kurt looks immediately alarmed, finishes topping off his cup with seltzer and quickly retreats back into the living room. Dave didn't even notice, is still talking to friends, but Blaine notices Kurt fleeing, of course he does. He stares after his ex, wondering. Then, after a moment, excuses himself to the living room.

 

“God, this is quality entertainment,” I say to myself. I peek through the doorway and watch as Blaine approaches Rachel and the group of other girls. Kurt looks away from him hugging them, drinking quickly. Gradually, ever so slowly backing away from his friends, as it appears Blaine’s making it a point to stay there, steal the show.

 

Minutes later, Kurt’s back in the kitchen, sighing, getting another drink. I shoot my shot, attempt #2:

 

“Tell me, this décor, this isn’t actually stuff that you picked out that he packed up and shipped over here to Ada, is it?”

 

Kurt chuckles. “Don’t insult me, Sebastian. I couldn’t design something like this even if I were blind. Apparently, Brittany S. Pierce broke in here and left it for them. As a ‘gift.’”

 

“You know,” I say, reveling in the fact that I’ve gotten a smile, “this whole thing says exactly everything about Blaine someone’d need to know. He’s _so nice,_  so complacent, actually, he can’t turn down a TLC extreme home makeover that makes his house look like the set of an orgy for gay circus clowns on acid.”

 

Kurt laughs so hard, he snorts. It catches me by surprise. Extremely dorky.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head, “I’ve just wanted to hear someone else acknowledge that about him for a _long_ time now.”

 

He leaves me wanting more.

 

Minutes later, I’m having a conversation from a college student at OSU that Dave knows, that I can’t find it in me to listen to, watching Kurt come out of the bathroom down the hall just as Blaine comes out of a door to his right, and they run into each other. Their conversation, which is brief, in which Kurt stammers and looks actively like he wants to run, is the one of the most awkward things I’ve seen in my life. Kurt can do so much better than this. I want to tell him.

 

When he's back in the living room, he stands alone by the mantel, watching the crowd. I join him.

 

“So, why did you end up coming?" I say to him. "Not that I'm complaining. At all."

 

"Because," he says, blushing slightly. "Because, I'm over it. This is all in the spirit of friendship."

 

"You're not over it."

 

He looks at me, his eyes full of hot sparks.

 

"You don't know what I am."

 

"You know I'd like to."

 

"Just because you're here, and I'm here, this isn't a date."

 

"Of course not."

 

Blaine and Dave walk into the room, join Rachel and the others, and Kurt visibly tenses, sipping the last of what's in his drink. I move myself a little bit closer to him, shot #3:

 

"Kiss me, Kurt."

 

"What?"

 

"You have this one chance." He's looking at me like I'm crazy, but again, I see betrayal on his face; his cheeks and lips growing red, his eyes scanning things about me that definitely aren't my eyes. "It's petty, but look at them. Look at where your life is. Aren't you tired of all this?"

 

He bites his lip, considering me further.

 

"I would, but I can tell you're a terrible kisser."

 

"Oh, really?"

 

"Yeah. You're that guy who's so enamored with himself, you barely pay attention to your lovers. If you have any."

 

At this, I move in even closer. He lets me touch his arm, looking down, eyelashes all a flutter. Across the room, Blaine stares. He's the only one staring.

 

"Let me prove me you wrong," I say in Kurt's ear. His hand covers mine, hot, gripping me. "By the way, Blaine is totally watching us."

 

"Shut up."

 

He pulls me by the arm, kisses me first. Hard. Closes his eyes, lets his mouth open; he's hot, definitely more experienced than I ever would've credited him back when I hated him. God, he's hot. He lets me use tongue, but doesn't let me control the conversation; he moves back, just as into it, aggressive.

 

He smells fucking incredible, too. Just his skin. He pulls back from me suddenly, shocked. Flustered.

 

"That, um." He's blinking a ton, staring at his friends, who are _all_ staring at us now. "I-I have to go." 

 

He leaves the room to run down the hallway, and I stay by the mantle, watching the room's reactions to me in the aftermath: Santana and Brittany whisper and point, Rachel hits Blaine in the arm, and Blaine is pale like he's just seen a ghost. Dave, on the other hand, shrugs, laughs, shoots me a thumbs up.

 

I finish the rest of my drink, leave the empty cup on the mantel. On my way to the door, I nod at Blaine and Dave.

 

"Great party."

 

Figuring I've defaced their property enough, I walk outside, down the porch steps, and towards my car on the street. Just before I've left their driveway, I hear the door open and slam shut behind me.

 

“Leaving?”

 

I turn to find Kurt alone on the porch. The lapels of his jacket are turned up along his cheekbones. In the overhead light, it makes him look stunning.

 

“Coming?” I say.

 

I keep walking, and soon, I hear his footsteps, following.


	5. You Do All This Big Talking, So Now Let's See You Walk It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I left this thing sitting for far too long, but I'd really like to try and finish up by the end of the year, if I can. xo

_**KURT** _

 

 

 

 **Rachel:** _OMG_ _Kurt_

**Rachel:** _You and the criminal chipmunk???_

**Rachel:** _Why didn’t you tell me???????_

 

Rachel’s frantic messages can wait.

 

I have a _lot_ of explaining to do.

 

I decided to go to the housewarming party because I need to come to terms with the reality of the situation. It’s hard not to dream of Blaine, lately, imagine that any one of these days, he's going show up on my doorstep, tell me he still loves me, and make love to me in my bathroom. It’s hard, but I have to stop dreaming about something that gets further away the longer both of us stay here. For whatever it's worth, for whatever reason, Blaine really is with Dave. Living with him. Pushing our future farther and farther, until one day, it won't exist at all.

 

I got ready for the party thinking maybe this would be the night that I finally let Blaine go. Rachel and I drove there together, her car, and I thought I'd convinced her to only let us stay for an hour. Figured that was all the exposure therapy I could take. Unfortunately, once we're there, she wants to stay. For all that Lima’s simpletons ridiculed her for her Hollywood crash and burn, no one else from this town has ever gone anywhere near Hollywood; I can tell she's eating it up, the younger former New Directions' questions to her about what it was like to be on a set and live in a trailer. I can't listen to her squaw self-righteously long enough to stay sane. Maybe, I'm even a little bit jealous.

  

The house where Dave and Blaine live is alarmingly gay. No, literally, everything that can be doused in rainbow is as such: pillows, curtains, rugs, doorhandles, come to find out that it's the genius gay design of one Brittany S. Pierce. Hearing that one of my oldest friends came over and spent hours helping them get settled in makes me feel like it really is over. Apparently, if everyone around us is celebrating and cementing their union, no one’s hoping that he and I will get back together. Everyone who's still in Lima, Brittany, Santana, Rachel, Sam, they’re on Blaine’s side in this, I can tell. I'm the one who broke off the engagement. I’m the one who looks like the jerk.

 

The problem with dating your high school sweetheart, bringing him into your life, and intending to marry him is that your friends start to fall in love with him too.

 

Maybe even more than you.

 

Despite the majority of the house's garish design, the kitchen, which I find myself immediately drawn towards, is dreamy. Untouched by the rest of the décor, it’s walls are a soft yellow, floral tablecloths and candles and gardenias in the centerpiece. Blaine has succulents, lavender and thyme in the windowsill, the way he used to at my loft. It reminds me of the kitchen I wanted to build us when we got married. On the fridge, there are dozens of pictures of him and Dave. They went snowboarding in Aspen? When? _Why?_

 

I can’t leave this room much, once I’m in it; people come and go, but the lonely part of me wants to stay, in a place that reminds me of the old life I used to have. The old Blaine. Even if it makes me horribly sad.

 

Coming here was torture, as it turns out, but I'm stuck, as Rachel drove, and she's drinking even more than I am.

 

Someone takes special notice of me, though, the last person I thought I might see in a place like this, if he hadn't told me he was coming. Sebastian. It’s funny that in a room full of people who supposedly love and care about me, he’s the only one who's really bothering to have a conversation with me.

 

I humor him, since I'm stuck here anyway, and since he makes jokes about the house that I desperately need to hear someone else acknowledge out loud. Plus, I doubt Blaine will attempt to talk to me alone, and act like all of this is normal, if he sees me talking to _him._

 

I believe I'm going to avoid any awkward run-ins as I stand in their bathroom for a moment, taking deep breaths, telling myself that, one day, this won't feel so bad.

 

Then I find Blaine in the hallway, moving to open the bathroom door just as I walk out of it.

  

“Oh. Sorry." Blaine smiles weakly. "Just uh, waiting to use the little boy’s room.”

 

“No, I’m sorry.” Since when has he called it _that?_ “Go ahead. I was just—“

 

“Looking at yourself in the mirror and repeating positive mantras?”

 

It’s said with a sad smile and a familiarity that really isn’t appropriate now. It hurts me to remember him. It looks like it hurts him too.

 

“So I’m just gonna get back out there," I say.

 

“Yeah, great, well, um—thanks for coming.”

 

“Sure.”

 

I’m annoyed with the frustration that flares up in me, after that. Blaine  _knows_ this is awkward and uncomfortable; this fallback life he's created, with my high school bully, in a house full of my friends, has enough to do with me that even if he really has moved on, the fact that his moving-on has traces of me everywhere he looks is...

 

Well, it's enough for me to feel so tired of longing and questioning him tonight that maybe I do want a little revenge.

 

And looking the way that he does, now that I’m past the point of not wanting to admit it, Sebastian is exactly the kind of guy I would’ve had a crush on before Blaine. Tall, gorgeous smile, looks expensive. At least, until he speaks. His pants tonight are extraordinarily tight. I’d never imagined checking him out before, formerly through the baggy slacks of Dalton students, and in that elevator, looking at his chest underneath his dress shirt had made me literally burn with resistance. But here and now, it’s hard not to look. I've had two vodka seltzers.

 

Trust me, I was no where near planning on sucking his face when I walked into this party. But something about the way he’s fucking with me, telling me Blaine is watching us, insisting that he's not as selfish as I can only assume, that he's an attentive lover, a good kisser.

 

He is a good kisser, it turns out. Breathtaking, really. God damn him.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm sitting in his car and I realize it was probably a mistake, following him with no plan whatsoever. Still, my heart is racing as we move forward. Sebastian looks wildly pleased that I've decided to join him, driving faster than any sane person would on the highway, but I'm also not complaining about the fantasy of this. I have always had this dream about dating someone who can afford this kind of car, whose watch probably costs more than a year of NYADA’s tuition. I just never thought in a million years that it’d be _him._  (And let's not pretend that his Dad didn't buy him all of this.) 

 

“Where are you driving us?” I ask him.

 

“Where else?”

 

Part of me doesn’t get how Sebastian or anyone could love a place like Scandals this intensely. After only knowing Blaine and I five minutes, he invited us here like it would radicalize our lives. Though, in a way it did. Blaine and I would’ve never broken down the emotional barriers we needed to cross to have sex for the first time, had we not had our first big fight here. Though it's full of seedy characters, creaking floors, and has certainly seen better days, this is the only place in the small, little backwoods world we grew up where we can openly be.

 

The Saturday night crowd has also grown, as I can see, over the years. We get inside and it’s crowded, the weekdays paling in comparison. I hold his hand as we weave our way between the sweating bodies, mostly because I don't want to lose of track of him to some other guy he flirts with here, but also because I might as well take charge of this situation, see it though. I'll figure out exactly how far I'm willing to take it, once I've got more or less alcohol in my system.

 

I see Walter as we're moving, and I should've figured he'd be here. I'm happy to see him, even if it won't be him I'm playing at intimacy with tonight. Walter holds me close as I pass, kisses me on the cheek. I feel Sebastian tug on my hand, look back and see the flash of competition in his eyes, the misplaced, boyish jealousy.

 

God, that look should not be hot.

 

“Walter!” As he lets go of me, I scramble, shouting over the loud music. I know he’s too old, that we're only going to be friends as long as I stay in Lima. Still, a boy can dream. If I were forty years older...

 

“It’s great to see you.” I’m still holding Sebastian’s hand. “This is, uh—“

 

Sebastian's removed the ugly look from his face, now charming, schmoozing and grinning.

 

“Sebastian Smythe.” He lets go of my hand to shake Walter’s. “Kurt’s fake boyfriend.”

 

“Ah, I see," Walter says.

 

“He's sucking my dick to make his real boyfriend jealous,” Sebastian continues. “I’m sure Kurt’s told you all about him, Blaine Anderso—”

 

I crush Sebastian’s foot with my heel.

 

“If you’ll excuse us.“

 

I push Sebastian, limping and hopping, towards the wall with the jukebox.

 

“This has nothing to do with me judging the fact that you’d clearly like to fuck a senior citizen," Sebastian says before I can scold him. "I had a sugar daddy in college.”

 

“You had _what_?”

 

“I totally understand—“

 

“I-it’s not like that with Walter—“

 

“But what this _is_ about is me not wanting to watch some other guy wrap you up.”

 

“Why?” I tease my lip. “Because _you_ wanna wrap me up?”

 

“And then some.”

 

“Come get me, then. Coward.”

 

I move to the bar, and Sebastian follows, ordering three shots of tequila and a beer for himself. I tell him he's insane if he thinks I'm taking more than one shot, I don't want to black out and forget this  _entirely,_ so he takes two, downs the beer in one go. We move to the dance floor, manage to find a spot where we can both stand, but it pretty much forces us to end up practically on top of each other. Not that I’m complaining. He's not as a horrible of dancer as I remember, for all that he's lanky, tall and strong, and I've had enough to drink that I'm handsy, purely for want. Who knew Sebastian has been hiding rock hard abs beneath his douchey frat boy polos? They feel so much better than they probably should.

 

I want to kiss him again, a lot, and he knows it. I don't wanna think about Blaine while I do it. It's easy not to when he's very much not Blaine, when something this trashtastic is never something Blaine and I would've done together: dancing, grinding, more like it, making out incessantly in front of all these strangers. I decide to let myself embrace the trashy. Let my tongue explore his mouth until I've forgotten anything but the way his body feels, the physical moment and nothing else.

 

Sebastian takes me back to his Dad's house an hour later; it's marvelously lavish from what I can see in the dark. But I'm also not doing much looking around. 

 

“Let me guess,” I stop kissing him to say, breathless, as he undresses me halfway up the stairs, “you’re a top.”

 

Sebastian laughs, kisses me again.

 

“I’m down for whatever.”

 

I've made wiser decisions. I can hear my phone still buzzing with Rachel's calls as Sebastian tosses my jeans down the stairs. But for now, I've decided how far I want to take this.

 

"Good. Because I wanna fuck _you._ ”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to be a lot longer than this, from both of their perspectives, and it's one of my favorites. Stay tuned!


	6. If I Ever Start To Think Straight, This Heart Will Start A Riot In Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaatttt is this really me updating chapters within days of each other? Yes, yes it is. That's how much I love this part.
> 
> Title from Paramore's [That's What You Get](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVbdEnIolPo)

 

_**SEBASTIAN** _

 

 

 

When I wake up the next morning, Kurt’s pretty figure is no longer in my king-sized bed. My comforter’s peeled back on the other side, and I can still see the indent from where he knocked out sometime around four a.m.

 

I should’ve figured he’d run out afterwards, not wanting to make it seem like he likes me or anything.

 

He sure really did like fucking me, though.

 

I move to get out of bed, and I’m sore from my thighs to my kegels more than should be even _allowed._ I’m stiff as I stumble towards the bathroom, stepping over condoms and piles of dirty clothes. My neck, as I can see in the mirror, is covered in dozens of hickeys. Can’t complain about that, since I asked him to leave them. I’m also red in all the right places on my body, he kept scratching me, rough with it, slapping as he hit it from the back.

 

I’ve gotta say, I didn’t know the little bitch had it in him. I mean sure, there’s been animosity since we met. But it’s like he knew, without me even having to tell him what I could before he was shoving something else in my mouth, how much I love getting handled.

 

The evidence of this is sure to last a couple days, and I’m okay with it, since who knows if or when he’ll take me up on rubbing Blaine’s face in it again. It’s eleven and I already know my Dad’s gonna give me shit for sleeping in, so I take my time going down the stairs. It hurts anyway, just taking steps at all.

 

I can hear a grill in the kitchen sizzling, smell bacon that isn’t burning, and is that my Dad’s voice actually _talking_ to someone? Never has he let the twentysomethings he brings back here stick around for breakfast. I hope I don’t have a new stepmom.

 

What I find instead, with a weird mix of horror and relief, is Kurt sitting at the island counter, wearing one of my dad’s blue robes, sipping coffee, before a plate of what looks like plenteous food.

 

“Sebastian,” my Dad says. I look between them, Dad in front of the stove and Kurt eyeing me over the rim of his mug, eye-lines crinkled like he’s trying to keep from laughing. “Your friend Kurt here is an adult and wakes up at a decent hour, with the rest of living. You should take a page out of his book. In fact, read the whole thing.”

 

I can’t sit down, on account of my ass hurting and the shock. My dad’s not burning anything, not the warm kale or the meats or the over easy eggs. He doesn’t cook anything not scorched for me even when I’m starving. What the fuck is going on? What kind of voodoo magic does Kurt—

 

“Anyway,” Dad’s saying, clearly to Kurt, not me, “so I told the guy that even though I was the best his money could buy, he didn’t have a shot in hell at getting sentenced anything less than life. Sure enough, I got him down to fifteen, and he got out early on good behavior, eight years. Last I heard, he’s still on the straight and narrow.”

 

“I never knew that anyone _actually_ planted drugs on people to frame them,” Kurt says. “I thought that only happened on _The Wire._ ”

 

“Oh, shit, don’t tell me you watch _The Wire._ I was actually starting to like you a little bit.”

 

“What? Come on, it’s a good show! Plus, Michael B. Jordan, Idris Elba.”

 

I limp towards Kurt as my Dad launches into a spiel about dramatized crime, unable to fathom that Kurt’s actually still here, _wearing_ _one of my dad’s robes._

 

I lean up on the counter next to him, whisper in his ear,

 

“Please don’t tell me you actually went down the hall and gave that good dick to my dad as soon as I fell asleep.”

 

Kurt hits me so hard in the chest that I cough and keel over. My dad turns around, nodding at Kurt in approval.

 

 

 

 

 

When breakfast is finished—I manage to watch them banter and listen as Dad tells Kurt my most embarrassing childhood stories for twenty minutes—Kurt’s decided that he’s had enough to eat, and enough of my shame, and gestures for me to follow him to the laundry room.

 

He knows where the laundry room is.

 

“I was trying to sneak out this morning,” Kurt explains, once we’re alone, “but he saw me picking my clothes up on the stairs. I was mortified, but once he apologized profusely for me having had the misfortune of meeting you, well, what can I say? I like anyone who agrees that you’re sort of the devil. Then he offered to wash my clothes and cook me breakfast while I waited. Also, he’s hot. Really hot.”

 

“That’s enough of your grandpa fetish.”

 

I watch Kurt as he opens the dryer, slips the robe off, and dresses himself back in his tight jeans and strappy coat. He doesn’t look at me the whole time, and I’m trying to figure out what to say from here. _Can you come back over tonight? Actually, can you just stay all day?_ Seeing his body in the light for the first time isn’t doing me any favors. It’s actually making me wanna push him up against the dryer and suck his dick. I would, if that wasn’t pathetic.

 

He walks out when he's decent and I see him to the front door. He’s glancing at his phone, and I remember that I drove him here.

 

“How are you getting back?” I ask him.

 

“Rachel’s picking me up.”

 

“And she knows that this is my house?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Have fun with that.”

 

“I probably won’t.”

 

Rachel calls him just then, and he rolls his eyes before answering.

 

“ _Oh Mylanta, is he some kind of millionaire?”_ I can hear her voice through his speaker. _“This house is extraordinary—“_

 

“I’m coming outside.”

 

Kurt hangs up, gives me a once over.

 

“Goodbye, Sebastian.”

 

 

 

  

 

_**KURT** _

 

 

 

The sinking feeling of regret from last night’s decisions doesn’t settle in nearly as soon as I expect it to. It’s not even as bad as I thought it would be, when it comes.

 

It starts when I get into Rachel’s car and she immediately asks if I thought “sleeping with Sebastian was a good idea,” given “how sensitive Blaine is right now.”

 

“You should’ve seen the way he looked when he saw you kiss,” she’s saying, sunglasses over her eyes. “It just got worse when he saw you leave right after him.”

 

“Okay? And how do you think I feel?” I really don’t wanna rehash _that_ with her right this second. I shouldn’t have said anything.

 

“Kurt, did you really just do this so that you could make Blaine feel bad?”

 

“No. God.” I also don’t need to tell her that Sebastian offered initially on the condition that it _might_ make Blaine feel bad. “For your information, I ran into Sebastian weeks ago, on my own, and we’ve been—talking, ever since.”

 

Rachel just raises her eyebrows, and we sit in silence for a couple of minutes.

 

I can’t lie and say that I don’t want to ask her more about Blaine’s reaction. What that means about how sure he is about Dave. I was so flustered after I kissed Sebastian that I didn’t make so much as eye contact with anyone before running out. It’s not that I _want_ Blaine to feel bad, I want him to—I don’t know. I want him to go back in time and un-invite me from showing up to meet him and Dave, on what was one of the most embarrassing nights of my life.

 

The thing is that it’s selfish to want that. He probably didn’t do it on purpose, not to hurt me intentionally, though I can’t be sure of that. Maybe he was just trying to do the adult thing. He couldn’t’ve known that I still wanted to be with him, realistically, given how sure I was that I wanted him out of my life when I broke things off.

 

“Well.” Rachel speaks again once we’re pulling onto the highway, pushing her glasses off her face. “I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

 

I don’t know what she means by that, but I’m not about to ask for clarity. Not that I think she'd tell me anyway.

 

I don’t wanna know what she and Blaine talk about.

 

“So, how was it?” she asks, then. I would stay mad at her for her tone earlier, but the little smirk she gives me lets me know that she is happy that I got laid. It make me remember something she said after Finn died. She told us all that, now, no matter what’s going on, she’s the cheerleader for our wins. He wouldn’t want us not to find love anymore.

 

“It was—“

 

God. For all that I was still drunk when we got back to Sebastian’s house, I definitely wasn’t two hours in. Six hours in. Maybe the first time, I could’ve gotten away with claiming it was purely for rebound purposes. The second time, when I rolled over and saw him lying there, grinning like I’d just given him the fuck of his life, I wanted to give it to him all over again.

 

The fourth time, I was tired, but Sebastian really does have a beautiful body.

 

And the look on his face when he came downstairs and saw me playing house with his dad? Icing on cake.

 

“I can’t believe that I’m saying this,” I tell Rachel, “but it was really, really good.”

 

Rachel grins. “Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I’ve gotta say, given how much you hated each other, that kind of surprises me.”

 

“Trust me, no one is more surprised than me.”

 

When she drops me off at home, I find that Dad and Carole are out for the afternoon. I’m still not used to how quiet the house can be when they’re not home. It’s never going to stop feeling like Finn is supposed to be here.

 

I take a shower, slower than usual; being naked alone just after you’ve been with someone tends to make you stop and think about the places their hands were. The thought of masturbating to him is sort of tempting before I think that seventeen year old me would probably time travel to the future and kill me if he found out. As many times as I had sex with Sebastian last night, I can’t decide if it would be worth it to do it again. Objectively, sure. If he wasn’t _Sebastian,_ and he looked like that, and I was single in New York, I would probably be all over this. Subjectively? Sebastian came onto me in the bathroom at Scandals, with the agenda that all this was was a fake relationship. A fake one night stand, more like. I don’t really want to see Blaine again if I don’t have to, after last night, how painful it ended up being.

 

So, then, what would be the point of the Sebastian charade? I’m not even sure if he wants to do it if there’s no Blaine involved. It sort of seems like our transaction has ended. I got what I wanted, released my sexual tension with someone who I surprisingly have chemistry with. He got what he wanted, which I suppose was marking the “I had sex with Kurt Hummel just to say that I did it” notch on his bedpost. Or maybe just to one up me.

 

I don’t know what comes next from here, if anything. If I do see him again, we pretend we’re together in front of the town where my high school friends and Blaine live, for month and a half, if anyone even believes it anyway, and then I go home.

 

And still, as I sit and wait for tomorrow, reading through stacks of play scripts for a class that I really should be in New York for, in person, I feel sadness settle back over me. This time, though, it’s less that I want the past back, and more that I want what the future holds.

 

No matter what I do, I’m going back empty-handed, without Blaine.

 

It’s time to start being okay with that.

 

I have a lot of work to do with Hearts For The Arts in the meantime. Getting audited is going to be a bitch.

 

 

 

 

 

 **(419)-000-0101:** _So not to sound like a bitch who actually cares about being polite or whatever_

 

 **(419)-000-0101:** _But thank you for last night_

 

 **(419)-000-0101:** _Also, you left some_ _gold_ _broach or charm bracelet_ _thing_ _from your_ _shirt_ _on the floor of the stairs_

 

 **(419)-000-0101:** _If you want it back, let me know_

 

 

 

 

 

 

_**SEBASTIAN** _

 

  

 

Not to brag or anything, but Kurt’s been texting me back all week.

 

I had to crawl to Karofsky’s inbox to ask for his number, but that guy didn’t ask any questions. He did say _good luck_ , though.

 

For the first two days, Kurt accused my stab at friendship as ruse for me to try and get information from him about work. Not that I need it. Angela and I have been looking into the details on Hearts For The Arts and Joanna Wellick, and these kids are probably capital F Fucked. Kurt actually does go and check the men’s room at their office for bugs, which he claims that I could’ve planted when I was there for the subpoena. I’m tell him I’m flattered that he thinks I’m so cunning. On first glance, he thinks I spelled it ‘cumming.’ Good to know his mind’s in the gutter.

 

We’re supposed to meet up tonight under the pretext of me giving him back his gold charm, which I realize is the lamest excuse in the book to hold onto, but sue me. At least he bites. I choose the Lima Bean, call it nostalgia, plus, we both know people who go there a lot, so he can keep his fake relationship buzz whirring. I don’t know if I can finesse it enough to get him to come back to my house, but I’ve at least convinced him to stay and have a coffee.

 

 **SEBASTIAN:** _So are you just gonna meet me there, take your charm, and then leave me without a kiss goodbye or what?_

 

 **KURT:** _Lol. I didn’t realize you wanted to kiss me._

 

 **SEBASTIAN:** _Did I say that? All I did was ask if you’re kissing me._

 

 **SEBASTIAN:** _I’m just trying to be prepared._

 

 **KURT:** _That_ _all depends on what condition my broach is in when I see it._

 

 **SEBASTIAN:** _It’s pristine._

 

 **KURT:** _Order me a grande decaf nonfat mocha when you get there._

 

 **SEBASTIAN:** _Basic._

 

 **KURT:** _And get us a table._

 

 **SEBASTIAN:** _Why?_

 

 **KURT:** _Consider that my kiss goodbye._

 

I finally get to ask him about what makes him such a big deal at NYADA; honestly, I never thought for a second back in high school that he would have all of this going for him. He got into that place with a makeshift performance to Broadway luminaries alone, on the fly, no rehearsal. It turns out, he’s considered a local hero because he tried to save a gay man from getting bashed, and the attackers turned on him. He has nearly straight As and takes twelve classes a year. He’s got more irons in the fire than I do, with almost none of the privilege or money.

 

Hearing his story makes me feel like a lazy piece of shit. I tell him that.

 

“Your words, not mine,” he teases me first. “But no, don’t think of it like that. It’s not easy getting back on the horse. It’s way easier to get discouraged. I mean, I was working here for five months, losing brain cells, before I got in.”

 

I shrug my shoulders. “I’d go back, if my dad would just pay for it. I’ve already sent the appeal. I just don’t have the money.”

 

“So? Get your own money. Ever heard of student loans?”

 

“Uh, yeah, but I’m not a poor person.”

 

“Maybe if your dad sees how hard you work, he’ll pay them off for you. Plus I’m sure whatever job you get as a _graduate from Yale_ will pay them off in no time, if he doesn’t.”

 

Three hours go by of us shooting the shit like this, laughing and talking and lightly arguing until we’re almost the last customers in the building. Kurt does lean across the table and kiss me then, and it’s not like the ones before, not “fuck me” kisses. They’re soft and gentle. Rated G for General Audiences.

 

I haven’t been not “fuck me” kissed in a really long time.

 

He doesn’t come home with me, but I don’t even want to ask him. I’m too stuck trying to figure out how and why he kissed me like that, in front of no one who’d actually care, trying not to read into it. After all of that, by the way, I still forgot to give him his goddamn broach. He didn’t remember to ask for it either.

 

We continue texting the next few weeks, seeing each other on lunch breaks, after work here and there. Finally, one weekend, my Dad goes out of town, and he comes by and fucks my brains out three nights in a row.

 

And it doesn’t feel fake. I’m not saying I want him to be my actual boyfriend or anything. I’ve never had anything even remotely like a boyfriend before. I’m just saying, he hasn’t talked about Blaine or him and Karofsky at all. I didn’t think Kurt was going actually to take me up on this thing, but in the hypothetical thiughts I had about if he did, I guess I didn’t expect it to be so easy. I thought Kurt would have me posing for Instagram every five minutes, not bother with wanting to talk to me outside of outings like I’m some kind of walking dick. He’s cooler than I gave him credit.

 

Blaine can kiss my ass if he wants him back.

 

 

 

 

_**KURT** _

 

 

 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my stint in Lima this fall, it’s that plans can change. Never get too stuck with one thing and always have a back up plan. You’d think I'd've learned that by now, not getting into NYADA the first time, Finn dying, Blaine moving on. But it turns out you can always re-learn your lesson.

 

It’s been three weeks since Sebastian texted me, god knows who he got my number from (I hope it wasn’t Blaine). Even though I told myself that there would be no point past our one night stand, it turns out that his company as my friend is enjoyable.

 

The sex is—I don’t even want to get into it, that’s how little I can believe how much like the first time it is. We’ve hooked up three times since, and every time, I’m not finished with him until sunrise.

 

I try not to let myself sleep over, though.

 

By the way, apparently people really do think we’re together, even if they think it’s gross, from what they’ve told Rachel; we weren’t exactly subtle, kissing in front of everyone I know. Sebastian says the gossipy regulars at Scandals think we’re a thing as well.

 

I haven’t seen Rachel or anyone I thought I might spend time with when I got here, not since Dave and Blaine’s housewarming party. Avoiding Rachel has been difficult; she finally has five members in her new Glee club, so they hosted an invitational with the Warblers and Vocal Adrenaline, and she invited me to come. Of course, as the Warblers’ coach, Blaine was going to be there. So I declined.

 

This morning, I accidentally break my rule about not sleeping over at Sebastian’s. It’s a Monday, but it’s Veteran’s Day, so I have a late start at work, 10 a.m. Sebastian, the lucky government employee, who really thinks the government has Hearts For The Arts gutted, has the day off.

 

I didn’t mean to fall asleep last night, but he wore me out. I wake up to him still curled around my waist, which is funny because he’s so much taller, has to contort himself whenever he wants to do something suspiciously like cuddling. He’s also snoring.

 

It’s 7:30. As little as I want Sebastian to bitch at me for waking him up, I do have to get going soon. It’s so warm, though. The sunlight creeps in, streaking gold in Sebastian’s hair. I run my hands through it, thinking that will be a more gentle wake up than what I’ve done the last two times. The time before, I left in the middle of the night without saying anything. The time before that, I shoved a pillow in his face.

 

He eventually stirs at my touch, his eyes blinking open. He doesn’t move. I actually think he pulls me closer.

 

“Good morning,” I say.

 

“Don’t go,” he says.

 

“I have to go, silly. At least soon. I have work.”

 

“Part of why I’m such a bitch all the time. Is because I’m lonely.”

 

I pause at this. Look down at him as he stares at my stomach. Wonder if he’s suddenly quoting Santana or if he really just needs to say this to someone.

 

“I miss my mom. A lot. She’s been in South Africa since I was ten. She comes back once a year, maybe twice. It’s not that she doesn’t love me. We talk on the phone all the time. My dad just put her through so much shit, so much that she was too exhausted to fight for custody. She’s happy now, and I don’t want her here, dragging her down with my shit, and Dad’s shit. Still. I’d rather be with her, any day.”

 

I’m not sure why he’s said this. Sure, we’ve been having deeper and deeper conversations every time we get together. Something like this, though. This feels especially personal.

 

“I know what that’s like,” I tell him. “Before New Directions, I had no friends, whatsoever. My mom passed away when I was eight. She was my best friend, too.”

 

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

 

Sebastian shifts up, then, kissing me softly. When he keeps going, hungrier and hungrier, I figure I have enough time, push the comforter off of us. While I’ve mostly gone rough with him, given what he’s just shared, the slower way he’s moving, the fact that he’s not shit talking me the way he usually does, I move slower too. God, he’s too much like this, quietly begging.

 

I’m almost sorry that I have to leave right after.

 

 

 

 

 

Work is sluggish with what little sleep I got, but I've finally finished digging through all the records we have to send to the state government, so I'm thankful for that. After work, I run to the grocery store near home to pick up some things for Carole. Dave Karofsky just happens to be there. I try and avoid him, which I feel bad about, but he spots me and starts an innocent enough conversation.

 

He must know that I feel awkward around him, though, because halfway through it, he's staring at me like he has something to say.

 

“What?” I ask him.

 

“I just, uh. I feel like we should maybe sit down, get a coffee somewhere and talk. About. You know. Everything.”

 

The way he’s looking at me is so sincere, it makes me hate that I really don’t want to talk about this with him.

 

“We really don’t have to,” I say.

 

“I know. But I just. I really like you, Kurt. You know that. I feel like we got to such a good place, these last few years, and—I don’t want things to be weird.”

 

I follow him to sit down at the tiny coffee shop right next to the grocery store, the glass windows at our side illuminating him clearly. I wait for him to start, thinking that maybe he'll buffer with more small talk first. Once we're settled, he decides to get right into it.

 

“So I guess I don’t really need to ask for your permission? But, uh—maybe I do. I really should’ve said something before I asked him out. If you want us to break up, if being with him is something you don’t want, I’d rather us be cool than have this drive a wedge in our relationship.”

 

I put my coffee down, unable to drink because of my stomach’s turning.

 

“Are you...” I clear my throat. “Are you happy with him?”

 

“Surprisingly?” Dave chuckles a little. “Yeah. At first, I didn’t really think it would work, because I’m not really his type, and he’s not mine, but. The more I get to know him as a person, the more I come home to him every day, the more I realize that I’m really happy. Finally, after—after all the crap I had to push through to let myself be happy.”

 

His voice breaks on his last words, and suddenly, I’m sorely grateful for something in this situation. Words can’t express how much I feared that David really might lose his life, after he was out of the hospital, even still. I’m no expert on depression or suicide, but I know that it’s not the kind of thing that takes a couple of years to heal. Sometimes it takes decades, or your whole life, or doesn’t heal at all. We’ve all heard those stories about people who spend fifty years fighting to live, but one more bad time, one long stretch spent too much alone without companionship, understanding, and love, takes them under.

 

No one can say whether this relationship with Blaine for him will really be the one. But I know Blaine, know how much he only wants to do this once, and forever. The kind of commitment he gives to things, barring the time he cheated on me, but I don’t think he’s ever going to do that again—if Blaine gets his shit together and stays committed—the kind of love he gives, his whole heart forward, could really help Dave keep his head up.

 

I don’t want to keep either of them from that kind of happiness.

 

I realize I haven’t said anything, for too long. Dave looks like he’s regretting it, opening up to me this much, putting the power to change his life as he knows it right now into my hands. I open my hands, then. Reach across the table and place mine over his. His sigh of relief makes me smile, despite the sadness in my heart over hearing them happy. God, I swear, I won’t cry.

 

“Do you remember what I asked you to do for me in the hospital?” I say to him.

 

Dave nods. “Every day.”

 

“Keep doing it. Don’t think about me, or about what anyone else wants from you. Just do whatever _you_ have to do to be okay and happy. I’m not going to be in Lima very much longer. I only came back just to do my work study. I fly back for finals at the end of November. Once I leave, if Blaine wants to stay here and make a life with you, I—I’ll get over it. I will.”

 

I’ll have no choice. All I can do is say goodbye.

 

“You’re not just saying that? Because I care more about you, and not hurting you by my actions ever again, than I—“ Dave’s fighting back tears. “You really did save my life, Kurt.”

 

My eyes sting, too, as I squeeze his hands for reassurance.

 

“I’m not just saying it. Whether you end up with Blaine or someone else, I just wanna be able to call you one day when we’re 70 and congratulate you on retiring with ten Superbowl wins under your belt.”

 

Dave laughs, and I’m glad I make him, because I really was close to losing it all over this coffee shop. He lets go of my hands, wiping moisture from under his lids, and then spins his cup in his hands.

 

“So, uh,” Dave says, sipping his coffee, wider smile returning to his face. “You and Sebastian, huh? Dating, or what?”

 

I snort, drinking too, because now I can again.

 

“I don’t know that I’d call it dating.” I really don’t want to tell him that I only started it because Blaine happened to be watching. “I mean, I like him more than I ever thought I would’ve. But...”

 

But I’m going back to New York. He is, eventually, going back to Yale. Saying all of what I just said to David makes me remember what I’ve really been doing with Sebastian. I’m just using him, for as long as I’m home. And, yeah, that was the point, Sebastian’s idea and all.

 

But this morning, something felt different, and I know it.

 

I somber, realizing that I probably need to tell Sebastian this. Make sure we’re still on the same page.

 

It would help, if I even knew what page I was on.

 

“I don’t know,” I say to Dave now. “I haven’t thought about what it could be if I took it seriously. It’s been, what, two or three weeks? I have a hard time taking anything that short-lived too seriously.”

 

“Well, hey, don’t knock it if it feels right. Sebastian’s a really good guy, even if he kinda fights everyone around him. ‘s just a mask, the whole snarky, asshole thing. The way I used to be, you know?”

 

As I leave and drive home, I know that I can't keep running from this. Because it’s more than his initial proposition now, and I know it. There’s no reason for us to text every day, no reason for me to kiss him when we’re alone, no reason for us to fuck when no one’s watching, and no reason that I genuinely enjoyed myself sitting and talking with Stephen Smythe, J.D., finally meeting someone else who shares just as much playful animosity towards his stubborn son as I do.

 

No reason except that I like Sebastian, and it’s not fake anymore. Maybe, since the hatred I had for him eventually passed with time, it never was.

 

 

 **KURT:** _Hey. So I think maybe we’re not just fake-dating any more. You think? Call me._

 

 

Right after I send the text, I hear the doorbell ring downstairs. What, was Sebastian parked outside my house, watching me through my window?

 

I wait upstairs, thinking maybe it’s a guest for Dad or Carole, though I doubt it, this late at night.

 

Dad knocks on my half open door, peeking his head in.

 

“Kurt? Uh. Blaine’s downstairs.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
